That's what some of the naysayers do. They want housing cheap, at the fully depreciated price that the original buyers paid, paid directly to SE and not to a profiteer, AND want plenty of it to go around without any shortage. Then they cry foul when somebody says you can't have it your way, but here are some other wasy which may help you obtain a house. No alternatives, no compromises.
Btw Verdan, I don't have a personal house anymore, I gave it to a friend who could make better use of it.
Even being homeless, knowing that I can buy another house I want down the road if I play my cards right, i.e. socialize with people, negotiate deals with people who might be willing to give up their house (Make deals? In an MMO?? Yes, that's what I do), Feels pretty good knowing that I have the option to have another house should I want one so badly because I can keep an open mind about different ways of approaching the problem..
And that's a perfectly legitimate point.. SE done goofed with their non-instanced, always up 24/7 housing wards.. Let's see, 8 wards, 2 subdivisions, 3 cities. That's already 72 extra zones that SE could've done without if they implemented instanced housing.. But they didn't, to match the demand, we probably need at least triple the number of wards, so that would be 200+ zones.. That's almost the size of an entire World in a typical MMO.
I don't think we're going to see an overhaul to the housing system any time soon though, likely never.. So the only "solution" is likely to be more wards added slowly as SE upgrades their servers to accommodate the load.. Let's face the facts, at the rate we're going, it'll probably never be enough to accommodate everybody so we need automatic relinquishing, we need the ability to trade houses, we need upkeep enforced to force people to think twice about buying a house on a whim, those are probably the only way to make the house more accessible than they currently are.. But no, every time somebody suggests that, oh no all of a sudden we've hit a nerve..
Btw, I'm not blaming anybody, I'm just being realistic and suggesting realistic solutions to get a house other than just sucking your thumb hoping SE will somehow magically fix all of this.. Get it through your head.. SE will NEVER fix this issue.. They're in way too deep to overhaul, and they've already stated they won't be adding new wards for a while after launch.
You're being way too optimistic.. If you want to own a house, especially on Balmung, you're going to have to buy from another player, simple as that.. OR SE may implement an auto relinquishment which will free up quite a few plots, but no you're against that too.. Basically, you want to get your house in the most unadulterated way possible, directly from SE at the price that they set.. Not gonna happen.. Not because of me, not because of player feedback, just because servers can't handle the load..
SE has already given you a pretty defeatist answer regarding this aspect.. What makes you think whining about it will fix it? This is not a matter of design principle, it's a simple matter of feasibility that comes as a result of bad design.. Can SE fix the design? I don't think they're willing to.